Tonya Harding Plans to Keep Boxing

Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, February 16, 2003

Tonya Harding intends to keep boxing _ even if her first professional fight is canceled.

The former figure skating star is scheduled to fight on Saturday's card in Memphis, Tenn., featuring Mike Tyson and Clifford Etienne. But indications were growing that Tyson would skip the fight.

"I'm not nervous about it, but I sure hope he shows up," Harding said Monday after a workout at a casino 30 miles from Memphis.

Harding's skating career ended in 1994 after she was linked to an assault plot to keep rival Nancy Kerrigan out of the Olympics. The plot failed, even though Kerrigan was clubbed on a knee. Harding acknowledged hindering the attack investigation.

Now, at 32, she hopes to start a new career in the ring.

"I've been trying to turn my image around to be a lady," she said. "But you know what? I can still be a lady and be a great athlete, too."

At 5-foot-1, Harding expects to fight at 120 pounds, 15 pounds more than her skating weight.

"I've gained a little weight but mostly in muscle," she said.

Harding said boxing does not carry the backstage hassles she endured with figure skating.

"It doesn't matter what I look like, what I wear, how much money I have, who I know. It's all about who is the better athlete in the ring," she said.

Harding was scheduled to fight 21-year-old Samantha Browning, a first-time fighter from Mantachie.

"I'm in the best shape of my life today, even more so than when I was skating," Harding said. "I feel good about myself. I feel very confident. I am very ready to step in the ring with this girl."

Harding said she decided to pursue a boxing career after a fight on Fox TV's Celebrity Boxing last year with Paula Jones, one of President Clinton's accusers of sexual misconduct.

Harding said she contacted Prize Fight Boxing and now has a four-year promotions contract with the Nashville, Tenn., company.

Prize Fight helped stage the June bout in Memphis in which Lennox Lewis beat Tyson. The company is also promoting the fights scheduled for Saturday.

Russ Young, a Prize Fight partner, said matches are expected for Harding at a Biloxi casino March 15 and in Oklahoma about the end of March.

Since the Kerrigan scandal, Harding has been convicted of assaulting a boyfriend with a hubcap and been sent to jail for drunken driving.

Browning is 5-foot-5 and 122 pounds.

"She's kind of short like me and built like me and has an attitude like I used to," Harding said. "Sometimes I used to just kind of say what was on my mind rather than thinking about what I had to say first."